Jeri Heiden, AIGA LA Fellow 2010
In Jeri Heiden’s Silver Lake studio, the Smog Design creative director and 2010 AIGA/LA fellow makes a startling admission, “I like Los Angeles now, but if I could have consciously picked a city to live in this probably wouldn’t have been it.” But before we run her out of town, it’s worth noting that with a name like “Smog” Heiden’s connection to L.A. is obviously less casual than she implies. Her real beef in this love-hate relationship is one that every local AIGA member would quickly concede: “There’s no singular core. That’s our big problem and it always has been. L.A. is totally different from other cities like New York, San Francisco, Washington D.C. and Chicago. Here you have to overcome inertia to leave your little area.”
Since Heiden moved to the central coast of California from New Jersey when she was ten, she’s has had many opportunities to experience the diverse communities of Los Angeles from an early age. “We had a fantastic art program in high school with great art teachers who actually arranged bus trips for the art kids—like visiting the Watts towers or the Pacific Design Center,” Heiden recalls. “There were many opportunities to study beyond a normal curriculum. Imagine how that opens up the mind of a 16-year-old from Lompoc. But we’re talking about the late 70’s when there was a lot of money for education programs—the opposite of now!”
After joining Smog design, an “old-media” bastion specializing in print, type, photography and packaging in 1999, Jeri and her husband and creative partner, John Heiden have done their best to reinforce that idea of early design education. For four years now the pair hosts a visiting high school class from Cabrillo High. “It’s a very progressive arts program,” Jeri explains. “The head of the program, Scott Schaller, enjoys bringing the students here because so many of them relate to our small-town upbringing, and wonder ‘Is there any hope for me?’ And he points to us and says, ‘look, they did it-they made it.’ ...And the students just keep getting better!”
Heiden herself enjoys teaching, and has previously served as an instructor of photography at Art Center College of Design. As for her own education, however, she drops another bombshell. “I’m a college drop out,” she admits. “I went to Pepperdine when I was 17; I had applied and got accepted before I graduated high school. Immediately I realized I’d made a terrible mistake. It was great for a well-rounded liberal arts education but I was really anxious to get into design—which was ‘Communication Arts’ at that point—and Pepperdine just wasn’t competitive. So within a few months of getting there I had already set my sights on Art Center and ended transferring the next year. But I didn’t graduate from either school.”
After taking a leave of absence from Art Center after her first year, Heiden moved to New York with boyfriend, and future husband, John. “We were going to have a little adventure and stayed for 2 years.” While not necessarily exciting according to Heiden, she credits her early works with developing technical skill. “I worked at a design firm doing catalog work for companies like Brooks Brothers and Horchow. I studied typesetting, learned production and did a lot of marker comps. It’s a different world now with the computer; everyone’s level of visual sophistication has changed. You can cobble something together in a few moments with stock imagery and say, ‘you know, like this!’
In 1982 opportunity presented itself with an invitation to interview at Warner Bros. Records. “The minute I walked in to the place and started talking to people, I just pinched myself because I knew that it was perfect. I could tell that I was among my people—you couldn’t have dragged me out of there. When you find yourself in that natural environment, a place where you’re just happy to be doing what you’re doing it’s easy to do good work. It just flows out of you.
It was an incredibly formative period for Heiden and gave her a clear career path in entertainment design after her earlier wanderings. “Certainly, finding myself in a place like Warner Bros. early in my career made it great, and some of the most significant mentors for me were creative directors in the record companies,” Heiden reflects. “I worked with Jeff Ayeroff for 5 years. He’s not probably not a known entity to a lot of designers within the AIGA membership, but within the record business, he’s legendary.” In fact Ayeroff is the art-director-turned-music-executive who nurtured artists such as Madonna, The Police, Paul Simon, and even director David Fincher. “He was extremely supportive and if I said, “Oh, I really want to do that,” I could do it. It was very fun.”
For the next 17 years Heiden carved out an envious niche for herself within companies like Warner Bros. and A&M Records with her work appearing on over 350 album campaigns. “I’ve spent a lot of time with these artists document their careers, along with people who worked within the record company: managers, executives, printers, production people and photographers. As a studio, we don’t really do a lot of promotion. The work comes through relationships and recommendations.
“I’ve worked with k.d. lang for 27 years. She’s really fun and one of the first projects I worked on at Warner Bros. was her album, Angel with a Lariat. Right now I’m listening to her new album (coming out next spring), which is amazing. I love the fact that we get music early, before anyone else gets to hear it and we get invited into the recording studio and into an artist’s world and get to enjoy that. What I love is music and entertainment, and the artwork that goes along with that.”
Having garnered three Grammy nominations amongst her other accolades, it is clear the music industry loves her as well. But how does love play into her current career, working side by side with her husband in their own studio? “It’s an amazing partnership, but he works upstairs and I work downstairs,” she laughs. “You need space, but we’re in such a small studio you can’t hide here. Everyone’s got their quirks and when we bring new people on as clients or designers, we try to make sure that we like each other. Personality has to figure in since we’re like a family. When you work for a larger company, to some extent you have to tow the company line. Being independent, it’s easier to be more idealistic.
Neither Heiden’s idealism, nor her specialization, have hindered the momentum of her work. “I’ve been extremely busy. We enjoy random here and you never know what is going to come up. We design most of the “Art of” animation books for Disney/Pixar and just did the latest one for Tangled. They are very challenging since you have to subsume yourself in the process because there is so much ART. It’s all about honoring the artists involved in those films. But with artists like Pink, Cher or John Mayer we can be very involved from inception in the creation of that imagery. Right now we’re doing that with a Beck book (photos by Autumn de Wilde), working up ideas for really unique finishes and papers and inks, so people get a Beck experience when they open the book. We’re also starting to do a bunch of iTunes LPs. Which is nice since they’ve settled for a lot of cheesy things like PDF booklets that aren’t that exciting, whereas an iTLP is a broader visual exploration of the packaging, a little experience. It’s really in its infancy right now. But we have to follow Apple’s lead since they’re the industry’s 900lb gorilla. Who knows if that format will last, but I hope it sticks.”
In such a changing design landscape, Heiden is happy to be recognized as a fellow for her appreciation of the classics: beautiful typography, illustration, and photography. “I’m very pleased to still work in the industry that I love. Our firm has thrived because I’m super passionate about one kind of thing: print. And that doesn’t mean we can’t figure out how to make it work on a website, or in motion, or on TV. One thing that saddens me is that there have been so many layoffs and mergers in the entertainment business and fewer people are trying to do it all. Young people don’t always receive the training and mentorship that they might have in the past. That’s unfortunate and frustrating. But I think there’s opportunity too. It’s a competitive market. I think anybody who has real skill, and ability to market that, is going to be fine. But it’s also wise to choose a path that lets you express yourself. Pursue what you love with everything you’ve got. That’s Me.”
